The Chronicles of Gleaning from the Privileged and Donating to Those in Need.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Flyer-ing the Faculty!

Hello, All!

Happy Spring! As Tree says, "Spring is the time of growth, renewal, and regeneration - manifesting our ideas into action." I hope everyone is seeking healthy transformation in this beautiful season!

This week, Glean did something a bit different than usual. Since the fruit was not quite ripe enough to pick, the gleaners headed out to the faculty residencies and put flyers in the mailboxes of the faculty, asking permission to pick fruit from the trees on their property!

The flyers said, "please contact us if you want us to come pick your fruit trees for free and donate the produce to our needy neighbors in san francisco!"

Hopefully we will be hearing back SOON from some of the faculty who are amped on the idea :)

The Free Food Farm is busy as can be lately! Last Wednesday volunteers went to work in the greenhouse planting seeds. In addition, the new "office" space is now completely finished with the intention of housing the entire seed collection. Yippee! The farm is also getting to work and putting more plants in the ground such as pollinators, culinary herbs, flowers, hops, and kiwi plants, and the plants in the greenhouse seem to be absolutely thriving in the warm environment!

Another exciting addition to the Free Food Farm is the beautiful Earth Flag flying overhead! Pancho and Mike climbed the pole to hang the banner, its words depicting the inspiring message, "The Earth is but One country & all living beings its citizens."

The Free Food Stand proved to be yet again a heart-warming experience this past Sunday. Tree recounts on his blog at freefarmstand.org that even more newcomers were making their way to the stand asking questions and leaving with gratitude and inspiration. New friends brought with them an abundance of picked lemons and oranges to give away. There was a great deal of fresh produce this week that had been collected as leftovers from the San Fran market. What a blessing it is that we can take that perfectly delicious fruit that may have been thrown out if not sold, and give it away to those in need! :) There is great hope that the produce will continue to be plentiful at the stand!

I hope everyone is continuing to seek growth and positive influences in their lives! Root down into the earth and reach up to the sky!

Pounds of Produce Donated Since 4/24/2010

About Me

Started in 2009, the Stanford Gleaning Project is a volunteer student organization that harvests excess fruit from the Stanford campus for donation to underserved populations in the Bay Area. As food justice advocates, we believe in generosity, abundance, equity, and sustainability. All of the produce that we harvest is donated to the hungry and homeless in the Bay Area through our current and former partners, including SPOON (Stanford Project on Hunger), the Ecumenical Hunger Program, San Francisco Julian Food Pantry, the Free Farm Stand, and the Palo Alto Hotel de Zink Women's Shelter. If you're a resident of the Stanford community and have an excess of fruit on your trees, feel free to contact us - we'd be happy to harvest and donate your unused fruit!